The selectivity of translation: accountability regimes in Chilean and South African higher education

Abstract

This paper examines the translation of global educational norms of quality assurance in two countries with very different regulatory regimes in higher education: Chile and South Africa. The translation process is conceptualised here as a contested socio‐political process of appropriation and creation of meaning. Drawing upon the strategic–relational concept of selectivity, the paper argues that quality assurance policies have become a hegemonic tool for re‐organising higher education because a variety of – partly contradictory – meanings and interests can be attached to them: quality assurance is linked to rationales such as democratic transformation, re‐establishing public governance, strengthening market governance, contributing to national competitiveness, internationalisation of higher education or positioning universities in the (global) education market. Looking at the translation of quality assurance policies with the concept of selectivity enables us to see how structure, agency, discourses and scales operate strategically‐selectively in creating compromises between different interests in higher education governance.